Fanmade:Gilded Miser

The Gilded Miser is a rarely seen demon that spends its time guarding the treasures it accumulates. It is the sinister horned embodiment of greed, as all it cares about is gathering more gold. An unnatural abomination of man's avarice, it is often a challenge to slay, although the rewards of doing so are usually worth the effort. Whatever they were before their mutation, they are now far more dangerous and malevolent than the typical imp.

The Gilded Miser closely resembles the traditional look of a demon imp and stands at no more than 3 feet (1 meter) tall. As its name implies, it is a greedy demon that collects gold selfishly. Its own body even has a tint of gold over various parts -especially the horns and claws. It stands on two legs when not moving but will hunch on all fours to run and pounce. Even though it may appear feral, it hides a cunning intellect that no adventurer should take lightly; it often chatters in demon tongues as it waits for an opportunity to strike. Deadly jealous of its treasure, the Miser will attack any adventurer that approaches its den and continue attacking until the hero leaves the vicinity. The Gilded Miser can be difficult to kill without a decent strategy, but they are rarely found in any kind of group -preferring to remain isolated. Should a Gilded Miser be killed, search nearby for its den, as it will undoubtably contain valuable items and a sizable amount of gold.

Upon being slain, the Gilded Miser lets out a piercing screech. Its writhes in furious agony as its flesh begins to burn away (like vampires in many movies that "ash") and molten gold spills from its gut all over the ground which lingers dangerously for a few seconds. As it burns into ash, the gold infused in its body scatters with the ash over the area and fades away while a golden skeleton shatters and crumbles into dust.

The Gilded Miser is not a natural demon but instead an alchemical creation by a corrupted rogue Alchemist. The alchemist desired gold above all other things, and so he forbiddenly summoned a familiar imp to assist him. In his research, he insert a gold coin into the body of the imp and used powerful binding spells to connect the imps strength to that of gold. In doing so the imp became much more powerful than its demonkin: it gained power from having more gold near it by amplifying its natural magical energies. The imp twisted the mind of the alchemsit and convinced him to release it from his control. The imp then vivisected and carved the man into pieces. From the chunks of flesh the imp created newborn imps that were also attracted to gold. The imps escaped and live on to this day.

The descendents of these imps live isolated from one another in different parts of the world. Their desire for gold drives them to acquire it in any way possible. They are not even truly loyal to the Burning Hells anymore, only the gold they seek. Normally, an imp's strength comes from its master who has enslaved. Losing its master deprives the creature of the majority of its strength. For this reason the typical imp is fairly weak on the mortal plane. However, the Gilded Miser retains some of its power through gold -no longer needing a master and allowing it free will. Their power grows as they collect more gold due to the bond they have with it. They even go as far as ingesting gold in order to guard it; the gold slowly dissolves in the hellfire acids of the stomachs and is inbedded into their flesh -giving it a mottled, golden color.

These imps are not commonly seen due to their greedy nature which causes them to be isolationists. Greed keeps them from reproducing frequently -as their natural imp brothers do -because offspring would be a danger to the gold it has. Therefore their greed suppresses its need to reproduce. Only on the rare occasions that the sex drive overpowers does a Gilded Miser reproduce. Demon imps reproduce in various ways depending on the species: copulation, hive queen, or in this case hermaphroditically -without a partner. Locating a suitable host, the Miser kills and carves the flesh of the victim into pieces, then inserts a gold coin into each piece to pass on the gold-empowering bond. Through means still unknown the chunks of flesh become homonculi that grow into newborn imps. Afterwards, the parent abandons the newborns far from its den and returns to its hoarding. The more powerful breeds are rarely due to their ability to suppress their sex drive and reproduce less frequently. Nevertheless, their enhanced abilities more than make up for their low numbers.

Avarifer Aureolus is the scholarly name of the demon imp family, literally meaning "Gilded/Golden Greedbearer." Of this type there are three subtypes:

Gilded Miser -the most common breed by which the entire species is often referred. This kind is fairly weak and lives for a short time.

Gilded Hoarder -a more powerful variety that is striped with gold from its years of hoarding. They tend to live longer and are faster and stronger than the Miser. After having consumed enchanted gold over time, it sometimes displays the ability to use the magic in the gold.

Gilded Mammon -the rarest and most powerful breed, it is extremely uncommon and unfortunate to encounter. The years of colleting have made it exceedingly faster and strong with numerous magical abilities. The skin is almost solid gold from its great avarice.

All breeds of the Gilded Greedbearer have razor-sharp claws that can rip through flesh. Misers typically have no magical abilities and so will attack in melee range. They also occasionally dealt substantial fire damage by vomiting molten gold onto its target. The more advanced breeds are more evasive and also have a random chance to gain additional abilities:

Mammon -Can have one randomly assigned elemental enchantment: fire, cold, lightning, poison, arcane. It will also have another monster modifier: another elemental enchantment, stoneskin, nightmarish, doppelganger, etc. It always has the ability to teleport.

Plutus is the progenitor of Avarifer Aureolus. He was the original imp summoned by the alchemist and transformed into a Guilded Mammon. Named Plutus, after the god of wealth, he was meant to bring untold riches to his master; but he is not a god of giving, only taking. The powerful imp forefather is still rumored to exist somewhere on the mortal realm -though no mortal has seem him for centuries. It is said his flesh is dark, glimmering gold and his mystical abilties are unimaginable. His massive den is known by other imps as the "Vault of Mammon", although no Gilded Miser dares attempt to steal from him and face his terrible fury.